Blood Claim by Laura Mykles (free e books to read .txt) 📕

at the park and diner were too great to be ignored or delayed by a childish insecurity. The door was still locked. There was no one here. Hunter shook off the unsettling aura, hefted the camera, and padded off to his makeshift darkroom, shaking tufts of drying hair out of his eyes.

Dim amber safelights gave the darkroom a surreal, B-movie quality once he was sequestered behind the closed door to begin the labor-intensive job of developing the roll of film. Hunter worked through each painstaking step with an automatic sureness of hand that spoke of years of practice. So much of it was done without conscious thought, Hunter was mildly surprised when the film negative began to reveal its hidden secrets so quickly. He stared it, examining each frame, eyes squinting to catch every detail and shadow on the ghostly cells.

He tried to tell himself that the shivers that ran down his spine and made him glance over his shoulder every few seconds were caused by lack of sleep and a lingering adrenaline rush from the hasty, dark walk home. But, Hunter couldn't rid his mind of the unsettling, passionate images of Malcolm in the shower. It seemed those would be his only images because Malcolm didn't appear to be on this new roll of film either.

With several of the newly developed photos held fanlike in one hand, eyes riveted to the pictures, Hunter moved out of the surreal dim of the darkroom into the light of the living area. He was still only dressed in his unbuttoned jeans, the flesh of his bare chest and bare feet bracketing the worn, button-fly denims.

Head down studying the pictures, Hunter came to a stop a few feet into the room. The same heavy, vaguely off feeling touched him again. The shadows in the room looked darker, thicker. Looking around the room, he scrutinized every gray-shrouded corner.

It took a moment for him to realize one of the bulbs in the lamp was out. Burned out, probably, but he couldn't keep his gaze from darting to the front door to check that the locks were still in place.

Not as reassured as he would have liked to see the chain still draped securely in the place, Hunter slowly began to walk toward the lamp to check the bulb. As he walked past the couch, he suddenly realized what had struck him as odd earlier, what he hadn't noticed, but what now he was sure had been there.

Haltingly, one hand still holding the pictures, he reached down to touch his scarf where it lay casually tossed on top of his coat. The scarf that belonged to his father, the one he had left behind at the diner during his hasty retreat a few hours ago. The scarf that couldn't possibly be here, behind his solid, locked door.

Mouth so dry his throat seemed to shrink closed, Hunter took a halting step toward the front door, wishing it were unlocked and standing open now instead of tightly sealed.

But after the first step, the need to know, the need to understand, the same need that made him such a good photojournalist, made him seek a sensible answer to an impossible puzzle. He turned toward his bedroom.

One of the darker shadows disengaged from the living room wall and shifted fluidly toward him. The eyes seemed to materialize first—cold, gray with a touch of red to them like in a photo taken with a cheap camera.

Hunter immediately stopped short, his heart choking him, pounding in his constricted throat. As the dim lamplight pushed the black shadows away from the shape, the towering, reserved figure of Malcolm Crane emerged.

Malcolm was still immaculately dressed in the same black overcoat, business suit, and black collarless dress shirt he'd worn earlier, his polished boots unscuffed and his trousers unwrinkled. If he had climbed the apartment building wall—the only way into Hunter's locked apartment—he was not only an amazing man, but astonishingly tidy as well.

Even though he wasn't truly surprised to see Malcolm, a bolt of fear shot through Hunter. His breathing turned to shallow panting that forced his heart rate to rocket until he could hear it pounding in his ears. Despite it all, or because of it, he was uncomfortably aware his cock was fully hard, pressing against the seam of his jeans, trying to jut out of the partially unbuttoned confines of denim. He stood still, ten feet away from the man, studying Malcolm's calm, almost expressionless, bold features.

Malcolm returned his silent stare and after a few seconds, maybe because Hunter hadn't run or screamed, the man's eyes seemed to warm with a hint of respect and a renewed light of interest. His pale lips twitched with the grudging beginnings of a pleased smirk.

Hoping to hang on to some tiny strand of control in the situation, Hunter glanced past Malcolm toward his bedroom. “How?"

"That's an old wives’ tale.” The smirk tugged harder at Malcolm's mouth. He didn't move, but his presence was filling the room, making it difficult for Hunter to breathe.

Thrown off base, Hunter blinked and stammered, “What is?"

"Needing an invitation to enter a dwelling for the first time.” Malcolm slipped off his long coat and draped it over the back of a chair. He looked larger without it. His suit jacket followed. He slowly unbuttoned the neck of his shirt, eyes never leaving Hunter's confused stare while he talked.

"I meant, how did you get up to a sixth-story window?"

"It's not hard.” Malcolm smiled, his clothes immaculate, no visible evidence of having climbed a sheer wall. “For me. With or without the invitation."

Malcolm hadn't made a move closer, but Hunter felt as if the man was invading his personal space, engulfing him in some kind of powerful aura. He took a small step to one side to escape it, instinctively gravitating in the direction of the front door. He stopped when he heard what sounded like a low hiss. The door was only a few feet away, but he knew he'd never